Dr. Walt Hollow:
A Pioneer on the Frontlines of Native American Medicine

When he later became a member of the original Board of Directors at the Seattle Indian Health Board, that experience helped him to shape the kind of medical practice he wanted to be involved in.

"I was one of the handful of Indians that recognized that urban Indians didn't have any access to healthcare," he says, "and that we needed to start a program so that urban Indians got some kind of healthcare, rather than crisis, emergency room healthcare. And so that also solidified my wanting to be a clinician and to see Indians as patients to help them with their healthcare problems. And so that work with the Seattle Indian Health Board really helped to also solidify that."

After graduation he was offered the chance to join the clinical faculty, a chance he jumped at since it would allow him to help recruit and train Indian medical students. Few Indian medical students were being admitted during that time, but being part of the medical faculty gave him a chance to mentor each one that came through.

"All of the Indians that have come to this institution, I have helped to train," he says, "and that's because I was on the clinical faculty."

In his second year working as Medical Director at the Seattle Indian Health Board, he decided to start a Family Practice Residency at the University of Washington for doctors who wanted to work in Indian health. He tried for six years to get that program up and running, but his initial effort failed. He persisted. Beginning in the 1980s, however, more attention began to be focused on the fact that medical schools were not attracting enough African Americans, Indians and Hispanics in a country that was becoming more multicultural. In addition, medical schools were not adequately addressing minority health problems. The federal government eventually recognized the need to develop programs that would teach medical students about cultures other than their own, and how to practice culturally appropriate forms of medicine. When the Centers of Excellence Program started in 1990, funded by the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services, Dr. Hollow applied for a grant.